by Frances, Jo
"No." both she and Luke answered at once. "Not yet, anyway," she added.
"So, Chase, do you want us to wait for you after the game?" Danny asked.
Chase looked at the clock and stood up. "I have to go," he said reluctantly. "I don't think I'm going to be able to hang out---we've got a game in Chicago tomorrow and we'll be flying out right after the game."
Jamie forced a smile as they all said goodbye. "Thanks again," she said. Chase clasped hands with his friends then gave her an awkward hug---the kind where only their shoulders made contact. "See ya, Jamie."
She tried not to stare after him as he walked away, and wondered why she was disappointed, instead of relieved, that he wouldn't be joining them after his game.
Chase left the dining room, also disappointed. He had always prided himself on having a game face, of his ability to keep cool despite being called every name in the book by the opposing team. Yet when he saw Jamie, his resolve of being cool went out the window, especially when she mentioned she got her own place in New York. I took too much for granted, he thought. If we don't live in the same city, I won't even have the excuse of hanging out with her brother. Not that he didn't like Luke. He was a genuinely nice guy, who had always been nice to him, even when Chase was a lowly freshman and Luke, the well-loved senior. But when he offered him these tickets to the game, of course he was hoping that one of those would go to Jamie.
He had planned it all out: he would be casual, and he would be in control. Instead he saw himself turning away from Danny mid sentence to say hello to her. Hey Jamie, how's it going? And that stupid hug at the end! He meant to just walk away, but almost as if they were physically connected, he found himself drawing closer to her...and they did the "A" hug, so named because the people form an A when they're doing it. The friendship hug. The mercy hug.
Chase was glad he wasn't going out with them afterwards. His lack of control was bound to embarrass him.
After dinner, they were escorted to their floor seats. Zimmer let out a low whistle as they were sitting down. "This is unbelievable," he said, looking around. "Have you ever had seats these good?"
On the court, Chase was a few feet away from them warming up. "Sure," Danny joked. "My little brother's 8th grade game." He nodded discreetly across court. "Star sighting, four o'clock."
They all turned, and not very discreetly, to stare at Eddie Hammer, a movie director who was a fixture at all the games. "Unbelievable," Zim said again.
"Best birthday ever?" Danny asked Luke in a little-girl voice.
"It's only missing one thing---" he said, prompting his friends.
"Strippers!!" the boys cried out in unison.
Chase turned towards them, at the same time Jamie looked over at him to see if he had heard them. He had. Chase shook his head and smiled at Jamie from across the court. The familiarity of that smile shook Jamie and she turned away quickly. She was in danger of having her heart broken all over again.
Chase felt the sting of rejection when Jamie looked the other way at his smile. Good job, Chase, he thought. She can't even look at you anymore.
Once the game started, Jamie saw the all too familiar mask fall over Chase. He had described what happened to him during games; how, despite how loud the crowd was around him, his world was silent because his only focus was the game. It was strange to know someone so well that you knew what they were thinking, yet to be so distant that you had to pretend to be someone else.
Chase was magnificent. He chased down the other teams scorers, running them down so that an easy floater to a basket suddenly turned into a humiliating block from behind. After one dunk, the place sat in stunned silent for a half second before bursting into a wild roar of approval. Luke and Danny leapt to their feet, high fiving each other and were rewarded with Chase giving them a small grin as he ran back to the opponents basket.
At half time, Jamie began to be aware that she was having her picture taken. She was about to ask Luke if he noticed, when he elbowed her and pointed up: she was there on the big screen. Jamie posed prettily and waved to the catcalls. As Sean taught her, if they were going to take your picture anyway, it may as well be a good one. By the third quarter, even Zim had noticed all the cameras pointed in their direction. "Jesus, Jamie, is all that for you?" he asked disbelievingly.
Luke gave a small derisive snort. "Amazing things happen when you're on Tabloid TV as Sean Foley's latest."
Danny leaned over. "Look, not even Eddie Hammer has as many cameras on him as Jamie does." They all laughed and Jamie could practically hear the cameras clicking to capture the moment.
At the end of the game, as reporters swarmed the floor, Chase walked over to talk to them, but not before he was intercepted by Kristen Maynard, a favorite newscaster on the Sports Newscaster. "Chase! Can we talk to you a minute?" At Chase's glance towards them, Luke raised a hand up as if to say, "we'll wait."
Chase wiped the sweat from his face as the camera light clicked on and Kristen brought the microphone up to him. "Chase, you had a spectacular game tonight. Was it the excitement of playing in Madison Square Garden for the first time, or was it something else?"
Chase nodded thoughtfully, as if this wasn't a question he hadn't heard dozens of times before. "Well, I've been working really hard on my work in the post, and I'm glad to see that's paying off. And I had a lot of help from my teammates under the basket, so they made it easy for me."
"You're going to play Chicago next. Anything you or your coach are doing to prepare for that?"
Shaking his head, Chase answered, "No, except to try and get some rest tonight."
Kristen nodded sympathetically. "Many rookies say that the travel schedule is one of the biggest adjustments they've had to make in being a pro. How's that been for you?"
"It's early in the season. Ask me again in March." Chase turned, signaling the interview was over.
"OK, thanks Chase. Good luck."
"Thanks, Kristen."
Chase walked over to them. "Hey, man," he said, shaking hands with Luke. "Happy Birthday. Sorry I couldn't get the strippers."
Luke shrugged. "Yeah, I know! And all I got were these shitty seats instead," he said, pretending to be disappointed. "Damn, Chase I thought we were tighter than that."
"Pretty messed up way to treat your friends," Zim picked up on the joke.
It was good to see them joking so easily with each other, Jamie thought. Just like the summer, around Chase's pool.
Chase looked down at his uniform. "OK, I better go," he said. "I'm like, sweating all over the place. Have fun tonight." He quickly turned and jogged off court without saying goodbye to her.
Jamie knew her brother and his friends would probably want to have a boys only night out, so she had them drop her off at her new apartment after the game. Standing on the sidewalk, she gave Luke a warm hug. "I'm not going to see you for another couple of weeks," she told him. "I'm flying out to Ireland tomorrow. I'll be there for a week, then back here for a few days before I get back to L.A."
Her brother looked at her carefully. "You OK?" he asked. Jamie knew what he meant.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." she lied. She pushed him towards his friends. "Go. I have to start packing."
She waved as the cab drove off, wondering why she felt more alone at that moment than she ever had in her life.
Chapter 15
As the door shut behind her new studio, Jamie comforted herself with one small fact. Her parents were also in town, so she would see her mom the following morning for breakfast while her dad was golfing with Luke. Her phone buzzed with a text from Sean: miss you madly. Normally this would have thrilled her, but tonight it only made her feel worse. She texted back, am exhausted, want to rest before my flight tomorrow. Which was ridiculous, really, and she knew it. She flew cross country after getting four hours of sleep---yet now she needed to rest for a flight that was eighteen hours from now?
Apparently Sean didn't believe it either because now he was calling her.
"H
i Sean." she tried to keep her voice light.
"Hey," it was quiet where he was, which was unusual because he was almost always in a bar or a party. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. Where are you? I'm not used to not having to talk over all the noise around you."
Sean ignored her question. "You saw Chase tonight didn't you?"
There was no sense trying to deny it, not with all the cameras there. Not that she would have anyway. "He gave my brother some tickets for his birthday to his game tonight. How did you know?"
"Twitter. As soon as you sat down on court, my followers that were there began tweeting some very insulting things about you."
Jamie had to smile ruefully. "I guess it's OK for you to have random hookups but I can't go to a game with my brother without being called a slut."
"I know you aren't jealous about that. Maybe I wish you would be." In the background, there was a muffled voice, and the click of a lighter. He's in bed with someone, Jamie realized. But he was right. She wasn't jealous.
"Why should I be? How can I be? You and I aren't sleeping together and obviously you would never be in an exclusive relationship."
"Is that what you're asking for? Is that what it would take?" Sean sounded tired. He'd probably had this conversation with countless other women already.
"No, not at all. But obviously you're not happy that I saw Chase."
There was a long pause before Sean spoke. "You're confusing something, Jamie---what I do with my body and what I do with my heart. I learned the hard way that the novelty of fucking different women isn't worth losing someone you really care about. Most men, if they're lucky, find one true love, but I was lucky enough to have had two so far. And I did the exact same thing, with the exact same results with both those girls. And now they're gone, and I couldn't even tell you the name of a single woman that I betrayed them with. So, if you want to be with me, Jamie, you just have to say so. I'm all in. Because it doesn't take a genius to know that your basketball player is going through the same thing that I did. The only difference is, he hasn't learned his lesson yet, and I have."
Jamie's eyes watered. "But I'm not sure I want to ask that much of you, Sean. I'm so sorry," her voice broke off in a whisper.
His voice was soothing and wise. "I know you don't, baby. I was drawn to you because of the love in your eyes for another man, and the fact that you want to do the right thing by me makes me love you even more---" he stopped.
"Oops."
"Oh, Sean."
"I do love you, Jamie."
Jamie began crying quietly. "And I want so much to love you---if that even makes sense."
"It does, baby. Don't cry, OK?"
"Maybe I shouldn't even go tomorrow." she wiped her face with a corner of the bed sheet, too spent to move.
"That's ridiculous." Sean said sharply. "Why should we deny ourselves each other's company? I'm happier when you're around, and I hope you're happier when I'm around. I want to show you my country, and I want you to help make my new song number one." He paused, then layered his accent on thick. "So can ya help a lad out, Jamie?"
Jamie sighed. She was loved. "I can't wait to see you," she whispered sleepily before saying goodbye.
The next morning, Jamie proudly let her parents into her apartment. It was so small that Jamie's childhood bedroom was bigger, but it was something she had earned on her own. Not by being Luke's younger sister, or her father's daughter, or even Chase's girlfriend. Her parents, and especially her dad, understood this and they spent a lot of time complimenting her on the neighborhood, the building and even the layout of the apartment.
Too soon, he had to leave to meet Luke. Jamie walked arm in arm with him to the elevator.
"I guess I don't need to ask you if everything is OK," her father said. "Obviously work is going well, and your mother showed me a picture of you in a magazine with that rock star. So---you're happy?" His face was lined with concern.
Jamie rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't want you to worry, dad. Any problems I have, are just...girl problems. Nothing more."
"This new guy---he's nice, right? He doesn't take drugs? Or anything I have to worry about?"
"Oh, daddy, I don't know. He drinks a lot and I don't like that, but," she waved her hand as if dismissing the thought of Sean. "He's not even worth talking about. I went out with him a few times, and I'm going to do his video. I don't think there will be more to it than that."
Peter Cameron looked relieved. "Alright, then." The elevator door opened and he gave Jamie a warm hug. "I'm proud of you, sweetheart." he told her. As the elevator doors closed behind him, Jamie walked back, feeling lighter than she had in days.
Her mother was looking at her look book when she got back. "These are just beautiful," she said as she turned the pages. "and so artistic!" She paused at a head shot. "Gorgeous," she said. "and your eyes are so alive!" Jamie laughingly took the book from her hands. "Mom, it doesn't count if you think I'm pretty," she said, pulling her from the couch. "Come on, let's go to breakfast."
Although her mother was far from ostentatious, Jamie and Luke knew that she loved going to "fancy" places when she travelled. It became a family joke that Frances Cameron wouldn't eat at anything less than a four star restaurant once she crossed the North Carolina state lines. The truth was, Frances was so frugal and self-sacrificing that her husband, and now her children, were happy to pamper her whenever she would allow them.
With a small smile, Jamie held the door open to the eatery of a celebrity chef, enjoying her mother's reaction. "Oh, Giorgio Mazza, how wonderful! I have his recipe book; I'll have to see if there's anything I recognize." However, even their location couldn't detract her mother from the purpose of their visit. As their dishes came, Frances turned to Jamie, and with uncharacteristic bluntness asked her, "How was it seeing Chase last night?"
"It was hard." she answered truthfully. "I miss him."
"So, why not---"
Jamie looked away. "Because I don't want to be with someone who's going to cheat on me," she said, her words ringing with finality.
"No, of course not." her mother agreed sadly. "There must be an awful lot of temptation out there for someone like Chase. But...did something happen? It just seemed like you called things off abruptly."
"Kind of. This singer I met on the plane talked about how she had seen him at parties. Then when I asked him, Chase denied it, but, I don't know, things just got out of control. He got mad."
Frances gave her a sympathetic nod. "So it sounds like nothing specific really happened, but you were afraid of being hurt when it did."
"Do you think that's what it was, Mom?" Jamie had never thought of it this way before, and to hear her mother come to this conclusion surprised her.
"Well, it seems that you weren't reacting to something that had actually happened; you were reacting to something that you anticipated happening in the future."
"And that's bad?" Jamie asked. "You think I should have waited until I had proof?"
"I think people should be judged by their actions, Jamie. But what's more important is for you to decide why you had to call it off when you did." Her mother leaned towards her. "Honey, I'm on your side. Your family is on your side. Always. But I just don't think you would be this unhappy if you knew in your heart that Chase had been cheating on you."
Jamie sighed. "I kind of just saw it coming, you know? As if it were just a matter of time before Chase gave me some speech about needing his freedom and all that. But now I'm confused because I have feelings for someone else. I mean--how can I miss Chase, but still be drawn to a new person?" She tried not to notice the people in the next table openly staring at them, but her mother did.
"Jamie, do you know those people?" she asked, glancing over in their direction.
"No, mom, I don't." She turned her head in the opposite direction.
The woman staring at them took that opportunity to lean over and speak to Jamie. "I just wanted to tell you that you were on Page Six today,"
she said conspiratorially. She handed her paper over. "You can look at it if you want."
Frances thanked the woman, and mother and daughter opened the paper to see a picture of Jamie and Chase standing together after the basketball game, capturing the split second when the two of them even made eye contact. The caption read, "Is she playing the field?" Jamie flinched and handed the paper back.
"This new guy certainly comes with a lot of problems, doesn't he?" her mother asked. "You're no longer a private person."
"It's true."
Her mother looked at her closely. "But you said you've developed feelings for him?"
Jamie found herself smiling. "Yes. I don't know how to explain this, but...he really gets me. We've talked for hours getting to know each other and even though he's super famous and has all these women throwing themselves at him, he makes me feel like I'm the one he wants."
"I understand. He makes you feel cherished."
Cherished. That was it exactly. So why couldn't she take the leap and be with him? "Is it possible that I broke my own heart when I ended it with Chase, mom?"
Frances waved for the check. "Honey, if you and Chase were still in school, I have no doubt that the two of you would still be together. If there's anything to regret, it's that maybe the relationship wasn't allowed to run it's course because of this unbelievable world that the two of you are in. But becoming caught up in your careers, meeting new people, not wanting to be tied down----those are the same pressures that face any couple when they go out in the real world. I mean, how many of Luke's friends are still with their college girlfriend or boyfriend?"
As usual, her mom had a good point. Jamie felt as if she could exhale again.
The women walked back towards Jamie's apartment. At the front door, her doorman hailed a cab for Frances, and when it came, Jamie found herself clinging to her mom.
"I haven't seen that look on your face since the first day of kindergarten, and you didn't want me to leave" Frances said in an overly cheery voice. She kissed her daughter on the forehead. "Have fun in Dublin."
